McCarthy sends department's gang expert to head up South Side district

December 05, 2012|By Jeremy Gorner, Chicago Tribune reporter

Chicago police Supt. Garry McCarthy announced a shake-up in his command staff Wednesday, moving the department’s leading gang expert to a South Side district notorious for its gang violence. (José M. Osorio, Chicago Tribune)

With gang violence escalating in the Deering district, police Superintendent Garry McCarthy announced a shake-up in his command staff by naming the department's foremost gang expert to head up that South Side district.

At a news conference Wednesday afternoon at Chicago police headquarters, Joseph Gorman said a dozen street gangs are mostly responsible for the deadly year in the district that includes such crime-ridden neighborhoods as Back of the Yards and Fuller Park.

As the Tribune reported this week, about 20 shootings took place in the Deering district last month, the worst of the city's 23 districts, fueling a 49 percent jump in shootings throughout Chicago over November 2011. This year, homicides in Deering have jumped about 50 percent and shootings roughly 37 percent, both among the worst increases citywide, department statistics show.

Melissa Stratton, a spokeswoman for McCarthy, made it clear that the rise in homicides and shootings played a role in the superintendent reassigning seven commanders in all. Stratton said the changes had been in the planning stages for some time.

For much of the year, the department has been battling Chicago's image for violence as homicides skyrocketed early in 2012 amid unseasonably warm weather. Homicides in Chicago have increased 21 percent through November compared with a year earlier, while shootings are up more than 11 percent.

At another news conference Wednesday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel expressed "a level of frustration" that violence continues to be a problem even though overall crime for the city has declined by about 10 percent. He also vowed that the Police Department would crack down on funerals of gang members, saying they would be treated "as a gang event" and that participants would be patted down.

He referred to Gorman, noting his gang intelligence background and attributing his appointment to Deering to "a specific spike in gang violence."

Gorman, a 27-year department veteran who most recently commanded the citywide gang investigations unit, made several sports references when asked how he would approach the gang violence.

"Treat it as if you're scouting your own team for a game. What can we do better? What plays can work in these particular situations. And then fundamentally try to … keep it simple," he told reporters of Deering.

"You can change a pitcher sometimes when things are going a little south. And hopefully we'll get a different effect," he said.

Gorman said a dozen street gangs operating out of the district have raised my antennas.

According to law enforcement sources, the Gangster Disciples, Black P. Stone and numerous Hispanic gangs are to blame for much of the gun violence in the Back of the Yards.

Gorman, who refuses to publicly mention street gangs by name out of concern that they might be glorified by the attention, said he hopes to motivate the beat officers in Deering, especially the younger cops, to be aggressive.

"I'm going to try to encourage the young (officers) to be the police. Go out and be the police. And let's take back our neighborhoods because it's our city," he said. "It's not the gangbangers' city. It's our city."

The gang investigations unit under Gorman helped solve a number of high-profile cases, including a probe into a robbery crew that was responsible for about a dozen drug-related slayings around the city in 2010 and 2011.

Gorman's appointment to Deering caused a reshuffling of assignments. The previous Deering commander, David Jarmusz, will head the department's public transportation section, which oversees patrols along CTA lines. Christopher Kennedy, the commander of the Central police district, which includes downtown, succeeds Gorman as the gang investigations commander. And John Graeber, the head of public transportation, takes over as commander of the Central district.

In addition, Melissa Staples was moved from commander of the Northwest Side's Albany Park District to head the new Near West District.

Lucy Moy-Bartosik will move from acting command of the North Side's Lincoln District, which covers the Edgewater and Uptown neighborhoods, to police headquarters to become executive officer of the patrol division. Jimmy Jones, former executive officer of the Far South Side's Calumet District, will take Moy-Bartosik's post.